Since 2010, Twitter celebrated its 5th birthday and LinkedIn now reaches over 100 million users—needless to say, social networks are still growing rapidly and are retaining their user base as well. Facebook moved to business pages, Youtube is growing its popularity abroad, and the advancements of mobile devices took these services on the go. Social media is not going away. Last year’s impressive growth statistics pale in comparison to this year’s. LinkedIn alone posted 100% user growth over the past year, breaking the 100 million user mark.

By constantly re-evaluating audience needs and adjusting accordingly, many have managed to attract and retain users amidst a growing need for managing enormous numbers. Trufflepig Search uncovers the best experts making this growth possible for companies, agencies, and non-profits.

Ripa Rashid, Executive Vice President of the Center of Work-Life Policy was in Hong Kong last week, speaking at a luncheon organized by Asia Society.

I was pleased to see a presentation dedicated to talent retention in China and India and women in the workplace within Asia Society’s March repertoire. Ripa Rashid of the Center of Work-Life Policy recently co-authored an article for Harvard Business Review, ‘The Battle for Female Power in China and India,’ in context of multinational corporations looking to China and India for growth, and within those geographies, female talent, as an important factor. At Asia Society’s luncheon at the Foreign Correspondents Club, Ripa shared some of her key themes and findings from her research. Here are the highlights:

The percentage of women at tertiary education levels has increased 10% in the last decade in India and 23% in China. This is evidence of the increasingly highly qualified female talent pool in both countries.

85% of women in India and 83% of women in China are eager to be promoted to the next level, compared to 52% in the U.S. With ambition levels at such a high, women seem poised for professional advancement.

Women are reported to show high levels of loyalty to their employers in both countries: 92% in India and 88% in China. I wondered if this meant their pay scales didn’t jump as much as they might. I asked Ripa after the luncheon, and she said that generally speaking, women had different consideration factors than their male counterparts in finding and staying with favourable employers. Factors such as the quality of their teams, their comfort level with company policies, and the fact that the longer they stayed with their employers, the more likely they were to avail of flexible schedules, outweighed the desire for salary bumps.

In contextualizing the female talent pool in China and India, Ripa described the various ‘pulls’ on women in these countries. 35% of Chinese women and 52% of Indian women face pressure to drop out after they have their first child. ‘Daughterly guilt’ weighs 88% of women down in China and 70% of women in India, while maternal guilt affects 86% and 62% respectively.

She then went on to describe some of the ‘push’ factors. Jobs are becoming more extreme, with longer hours for women in China and India. On average, Ripa shared, they are working between 10-18 additional hours per week compared to their workload three years ago. An astounding statistic indeed. Prejudice in the workplace affects 55% of women in India (enough for them to consider quitting or pulling back from their jobs) and 48% of women in China. Safety, and practical and cultural barriers to international mobility (considered an important part of professional advancement), are other factors that ‘push’ women in these countries.

China’s one-child policy means that it will soon be faced with a graying population, whereas in India, the demographics weigh favourably toward the young but are faced with infrastructural challenges in the country.

Ripa shared a few models that some companies have employed to attract and sustain the best female talent, and help women deal with the various pulls and pushes of the work environment, such as Google India’s Women’s Engineering Award, Intel’s Women at Intel in China, and Cisco’s Extended Flex Program.

Will the convergence of Business Intelligence and Social Media tools lead to more accurate decision-making?

How far off are we from replacing funny videos and photos with solid analytics to make decisions collaboratively and even socially?

That’s the question the IS Associates explored at their February meeting where Betsy was invited to moderate this engaging panel. The panel explored how brands are leveraging these tools in business decisions.

Betsy Berkhemer-Credaire moderated the panel on Business Intelligence for the UCLA Andersons IS Associates. The IS Associates are dedicated to enhancing IT leadership and management; members include senior IT executives, faculty, and students of UCLA Anderson.

If you haven’t heard of Twestival, it’s a charity event that happens in over 175 cities all over the world on Thursday, March 24. Each local Twestival selects a charity that’s important to the community, tweets about it to build awareness, and attends charity events or volunteers throughout the day.

Volunteer venues and ticket information are still being locked down this week so more information will be posted closer to the 24th. Here’s a link to the LA Twestival blog for more details: http://ow.ly/47lAW.

Check out this graphic from @DekelChui to see 5 easy ways to get involved with Twestival:

In August 2010, Ogilvy PR’s 360 Degree Digital Influence Practice’s Social Media team in China put together an infographic to show China’s social media equivalents in an expansive list of categories: wikis, deal-of-the-day, instant messaging, blogging, and SNS to name a few. While the equivalents may have different features, they take on enough similarities to be comparable in terms of user demographics and usage. The most basic example is China’s Ren Ren which is a Facebook equivalent.

On March 2, 360 Degree Digital Influence released an updated version which showcases just how much change has taken place in the short six-month period. The new infographic gives a quick snapshot of the increase in platforms. Groupon’s commitment to China is reflected, as are Quora (compare to Yahoo Answers) and Tencent’s (Internet service portal) micro-blogging services.

Burson-Marsteller has predicted 11 trends in the digital communications realm in China for 2011. “If 2009 and 2010 was a period of ‘digital foreplay’ for companies at large, then 2011 and 2012 are pegged to be the year of ‘digital embrace,’” said Zaheer Nooruddin, director and lead digital strategist at Burson-Marsteller China in a recent article in Campaign Asia.

Burson’s predictions hit the nail on the head. Trufflepig Search in Hong Kong is witnessing the digital re-think in China as companies seek sound, integrated social media strategies versus the usually scattered tactical approaches everyone took to in previous years simply to be on the bandwagon. ROI is more important now than ever, as better services become available. More senior-level executives are taking to Twitter and Sina Weibo (China’s Twitter equivalent) as the need to engage and promote transparency becomes more apparent. Other predictions include the rise of the use of infographics to convey data, marketing based on the use of location-based communications, increased group buying activity, and the recognition of the value of the mobile web market in China.

Hand in hand with China’s predicted ‘digital embrace’ as Nooruddin cleverly calls it, is the increasing demand for excellent social media fluent professionals.